In recent years, new businesses have sprung up that are based almost entirely on the on-line “e-business” model. Existing brick-and-mortar businesses have been rapidly transforming their business models to bring their commerce on-line. Accordingly, purchasing goods or services electronically over a wide area network, such as the World Wide Web is known. It is also known that for financial transactions using credit cards or debit cards to pay for such purchases entails certain transaction costs, expressed in terms of dollars per transaction. For sales involving sufficient dollar amounts as determined by the financial circumstances of a given business, that business can rationally incur these transaction costs to execute the sale because the profit gained by executing the sale sufficiently exceeds the transaction costs. “Micropayment” transactions, in which the economic value exchanged during the transaction is relatively small as compared to the per-transaction costs associated with credit cards or debit cards, are known and are in increasing demand. However, it may not be economically rational to use such cards for micropayment transactions because the transaction cost may exceed the value of the underlying purchase. In other words, why incur a $5.00 US transaction cost to execute a purchase of goods or services with an economic value of only $0.50 US?
Because of the above circumstances, there is a continuing demand for the ability to conduct and settle micropayment transactions to purchase goods or services over the Internet and through other commercial avenues for reaching consumers. For example, World Wide Web sites featuring downloading/sharing of audio or video data, downloading of magazine or newspaper articles, on-line gaming, and on-line gambling typically charge relatively low fees per transaction to their customers. Generally, these fees fall in the range of $0.50 US to $10.00 US. These sites, and other sites similarly situated, are currently facing the challenge of economically conducting and settling on-line micropayment transactions with their customers.
Several alternatives have been proposed to address this issue. Known “smart” cards (Smart Card) contain microprocessors, memory, and stored program code, and typically function by storing a certain value on-board the card. The Smart Card then enables merchants and consumers to decrement that value as purchases are made and to increment that value as the card is “re-charged” with additional value. Smart Cards offer certain advantages that might make them suitable in certain on-line transactions; however, the cost of these advantages may be difficult to justify in the micropayment context. Specifically, Smart Cards generally contain advances security features that are embedded in the technology used to fabricate the Smart Card. These security features enable consumers to conduct Smart Card transactions with a relatively high degree of security. For example, the Smart Card can support the use of personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords or possibly biometric data to authenticate the consumer as a safeguard against fraud. However, this same technology makes the Smart Card relatively expensive to manufacture and the Smart Card itself is generally not considered a disposable item. The above security features can also require the merchants to provide an expensive infrastructure such as card readers, scanners or biometric equipment at the merchant site. Also, the security features inherent in Smart Card design can prevent the Smart Card from being used anonymously, which can be important to consumers when conducting some on-line transactions. Further, the above security features can entail infrastructure and transaction costs that are sufficiently high to discourage use of Smart Cards for micropayment transactions.
Many websites conduct on-line business with consumers by enabling them to charge purchases to bank-issued credit cards, or by authorizing debit card transactions to cover those purchases. However, banks typically levy a transaction fee for settling such purchases, and once again, these per-transaction fees can be sufficiently high to discourage acceptance of conventional credit or debit cards to conduct and settle micropayment transactions. Further, the use of credit cards on-line entails risk that sensitive information such as account numbers and/or expiration dates may be misappropriated and used in subsequent fraudulent transactions. Unwinding such fraudulent transactions imposes significant expense and inconvenience upon any merchants and banks inadvertently involved in those fraudulent transactions, not to mention the consumer that legitimately owns the account. Should the credit card account be compromised by fraud, the consumer and/or bank faces risk bounded only by the credit limit on the account which could be as high as $100,000.00 US. Although, for example, VISA® and MasterCard® limit consumer risk to $50.00, the issuing bank would face the rest of the risk up to the credit limit on the given card. Also, credit card transactions are typically not anonymous transactions because of the intrinsic nature of how credit cards are issued and processed. This lack of anonymity and related privacy concerns can discourage credit card purchases in some types of on-line commerce.
Specialized cards with matching devices and networks have also been proposed as well. However, these proposals can entail significant infrastructure costs such as the cost of producing the specialized card, of producing and installing card readers or other specialized hardware at the physical location of each retailer and/or consumer participating in the network and of implementing and maintaining the network itself. These infrastructure costs translate into high per-transaction costs that can limit use of such cards and networks for micropayment transactions and also discourage additional on-line merchants from joining the network by increasing the start-up costs associated with joining the network. Also, such specialized cards and networks typically do not provide anonymity to consumers using such cards and networks.
As the preceding discussion illustrates, there exists a continuing need for systems, methods and business methods that enable execution and settlement of micropayment transactions. Such systems, methods and business methods would preferably entail minimal transaction costs, capitalize on existing infrastructure rather than necessitating new infrastructure, promote consumer anonymity, and expose consumers to (at most) a fixed and minimal risk of theft or misappropriation.